MEP7557

Since I have been really bored lately I decided to attempt a new light mod. This one is for lighting up the foot wells under the driver and passenger seats. These lights come on when you open the rear doors. I have the wiring diagrams for the car so I was able to figure out the trigger wire. Makes a big difference and is kind of a cool feature. Each one works independently just like the courtesy lights in the doors. Next up is changing my HID from the OEM 4300k to 5000k, I was afraid to go to the 6000k as I did not want them to be blue in color. After this I am changing my turn signals to LED, parts are on order. Enjoy.

PS All my interior lights I have left incandescent as I feel it looks better with the Parchment interior.

2k11sfrx

Nice mind sharing the wire diagram ?

InRBigness

What did you use for bulbs and how did you attach them?

MEP7557

Changed out the HID bulbs last night to the 5000k. They are perfect, got rid of that last bit of yellow without going blue.

I will post the wiring diagram for the interior lights and further info on the seat well lights. I am going to be doing the passenger side today and will take some pictures.

kitlz

Looks neat, MEP. My guess is you tapped into the wires for the illuminated sills since it's near there. I'm curious to see what the lights look like uninstalled. That mod would probably work nicely in an RX with black interior. And congrats on getting rid of the yellow HIDs. Must feel good.

MEP7557

I did not tap into the illuminated door sills since they only come on with the front door. I actually tapped into the trigger wire for that rear door only. Here is the wiring diagram. I will post pictures after I do the passenger side. The lights I got use a wedge base bulb so they could be LED for those who prefer.

cafpaf

Thanks for posting the wiring diagram. Now if you could only teach dummies like me how to read it, that would be wonderful. I am looking forward to the pictures since that will show me which wire to use, what type bulb you used and how to do it. I have black interior and I think it would be a great mod. Thanks in advance for you help with this.

MEP7557

OK I hope this helps. There are instructions on the pictures, all in all pretty easy. You need to remove both door sills front and back. Now remove the cover for the pillar that is between the front and the back, the one where the seat belt goes. It is simply a snap on piece, grab at the top and spread out the sides to ease removal. If some of the push clips remain on the car they can be removed and reinserted in to the trim piece.This is for the passenger side, the only difference for the drivers side is the color of wires you must connect to. On the drivers side the two wires are basically in the same location on the connector just different colors.The switched ground is violet on the drivers side, I can't remember what color the positive was but it should be the wire right above it just like the passenger. Sorry about that. Any questions feel free to ask. Enjoy.

MEP7557

The rest of the pictures.

cafpaf

Thank you so very much for the detailed instructions. I have saved them and when it get warmer this Spring, I will give it a shot. I would do it now but it in not really warm here in Pittsburgh and my garage is not heated. Thanks again.

happy1977

As always, really good mods from you. Props! As for your HIDs, what's the difference between 4300K vs 5000K? Coz to my understanding, there's no difference in a projector. 5000k might have less light than 4300K.

InRBigness

5000K will be almost pure white. The lower you get the more yellow they appear and the higher you get the more blue the outpul light looks.

DunWkg

Just wondering...are any of the lighting and lighting control circuits supervised by a computer and changes in resistance or amperage result in error messages? Or if you stay below fuse ratings there are no problems? I understand switching to LEDs will reduce load in some cases.

I find all these modifications fascinating. Thanks everyone for sharing.

InRBigness

There would be no issues with the changing to LED for regular bulbs. Fuses are in place to protect the wiring from over heating due to an excessive load. As the LED lights use less power that will never be an issue. There are no computers that I am aware of that would be affected by these changes. I say this as if a bulb burned out the resistance would drop and thus the amp draw, then the computer would have an issue and this does not happen.

In the next few years all bulbs will be LED, this I am sure of. The tech is realativly new and I am not sure the supply lines are set up to be able to fulfil the manufacturing supply needed for new production. There is also a cost increase but that would be negligable one would think.

happy1977

I understand that in paper the 5000k will be whiter/bluer than 4300k, but visually looking at it on HID projector, there's not much difference vs getting a 6000K. It's more distinguishable in a reflective housing than in a projector. Plus, 5000K will have less light than 4300K from what I've read.